


The Ends of Being and Ideal Grace

by gabolange



Series: The Best of What Might Be [4]
Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode Related, F/M, Smut, Sneaking Around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 02:43:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11221620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabolange/pseuds/gabolange
Summary: She wonders what he would say if she put voice to all the jumbled hope swimming through her mind.





	The Ends of Being and Ideal Grace

**Author's Note:**

> Part four, following on from "The Cup Overflowing." An alternate look at 2.06.
> 
> With immense gratitude to pellucid for the beta and everything else. Any errors are my own.

***

Sister Bernadette thinks the exhilaration of their triumph at the health board will not pass for days. It isn’t only that Poplar will get its TB van, proud though she is of that, but she cannot shake the sheer delight of working alongside Doctor Turner. 

She isn’t sure, and doesn’t want to know, how much of the joy stems from her sense that they are even better at this now than they might have been, that their growing knowledge of each other has made them more effective working partners. 

She has been trying not to imagine the life she might have with him, and instead to take comfort in the routines of her work and her devotions. It doesn’t help when his son grins up at her in the community center, smiling to see her just as his father does. It doesn’t help when she catches the nurses discussing the doctor as a man she knows he isn’t: worn and distracted and fading into the furniture. She wants to defend him--has done, sometimes, to her own chagrin--but then doesn’t know how to explain why.

When her distractions fail, when her dreams dance with images of his hands on hers, not only in his bed but passing tea across a breakfast table, she tries to remind herself why she rejected this kind of life once, so long ago. That the structured world she has chosen at Nonnatus House offers her more autonomy than most women in their community will ever have, that her time belongs only to God and her patients and herself. That that is all she has ever wanted.

But today her protestations seem more feeble than usual. Her doctor--and he is hers now, more in this moment than ever before--walks in step beside her, his face split with an easy grin. His joy, like hers, is for their mutual success, for a day spent together in a service they share. In that smile, she sees a reflection of something she might be able to trust: that he would no less ask her to give up the vocation that brought them together than he would put it aside himself.

She wonders what he would say if she put voice to all the jumbled hope swimming through her mind. Right now, in this moment, she thinks she could ask him for everything, to work and sleep and fight beside him, and that he would give it to her in a heartbeat. 

She wonders if she will have the courage to try.

**

It is not a long drive, but she recognizes the way the air between them shifts as they near home. Beneath the heavy fabric of her habit, Sister Bernadette rubs her legs together, trying to quell the warmth pooling between them. She tries not to shift in her seat but she must give herself away, because Doctor Turner moves his hand from the gearstick to her knee, tapping an unfamiliar rhythm against it. 

She still doesn’t know what to make of it, the way her heart flutters beneath her breastbone, the way reason gives way to a want so strong that nothing she tells herself can quiet it. They haven’t time for this: he has patients in less than an hour and she is expected home to man the phone. They cannot take a detour to the out-of-the-way spot she can’t help but think of as theirs; there isn’t anything but squelch her rising desire and go to work. 

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter to either of them. Beside her, Doctor Turner takes a deep breath and tightens his fingers against her knee. He parks the car in front of the surgery, a little haphazardly--but that’s fine. She doesn’t mind if everyone thinks he was in a hurry, shambolic and distracted in his usual way. Better that than the truth, which is that she puts her hand over his and meets his eyes, where she sees happiness bleed into need. 

He looks like he desperately wants to kiss her, no matter that they are in the car where anyone could see them. She likes the idea of a future where he could lean across the space between them as if it were nothing; he must, too, because it is with visible effort that he untangles his fingers from hers and climbs out of the car. “Come on, then,” he says. 

She hurries to follow, tries to catch up to whatever he has in mind. She does not know what to hope for--except, perhaps, that they don’t find Sister Evangelina at the reception desk, scowling at their flushed faces. 

But the hall is blessedly quiet. His steps echo as he crosses quickly toward the storage closet, reaching for the door and yanking it open. He grins, clearly pleased with whatever idea has crossed his mind. He says, “All the orders were timely this week.” 

Oh. _Oh_.

“We don’t have time,” she replies, but follows him into the closet and lets the door close behind her back as he starts rifling through boxes for the rubbers that were, apparently, delivered correctly. 

“Don’t we?” he asks, and his tone is not as light as she thinks he wants it to be. She watches him as he searches and sees frustration in the pull of his fingers at the cardboard, the residual adrenaline from their meeting pulse in the vein at his temple. She likes to think she can read him now, at least better than before, and beneath his hurry and keening want she thinks he looks uncertain, though she hardly knows what for. 

She wants to ease that concern almost as much as she wants him--oh, how she wants him--and so she reaches out, stilling his hands. “Let me,” she says. 

It is quick work because, proudly, she is nothing if not efficient. She turns to him, holding out the sheath, giving herself over to him in the exchange. “Clever,” he says to her, a little hoarsely. He leans down and kisses her hard, pressing her between his body and the wall of the little room. 

Before she has time to respond he draws back and says, “You were amazing today.” He kisses her again, just as roughly. She wants to say they were amazing together, should always be together, and wonders if that would ease the edge in his voice. 

Instead, she meets him, opening her mouth, sucking his tongue despite the lingering taste of the meeting’s terrible coffee. She hopes in her kiss he can feel the desperate, confused happiness that their success has brought her, that he has brought her, because she doesn’t have the words. 

She tangles her hands in his hair, fingers hard against his skull, as she pulls him flush against her. “God,” he says, thrusting against her. She can feel his erection through his trousers against her belly and she thinks he must have been half-hard in the car, hoping for this moment just as she had been. It makes her shiver, the way he wants her, the way he slides his hands to her buttocks and pulls her against him to show her just how much he wants her.

He kneads her ass, fingers digging through heavy fabric to pull her leg up to his hip. There are too many layers between them, but she doesn’t want to pull away to fight with eyelets and buttons and clasps, so she wills herself closer, wrapping her leg around him. 

He releases his hold on her just long enough to reposition his hand under her skirt, sliding his fingers up the back of her thigh past her stocking and her garter before grasping her ass in his hand. He squeezes hard and she gasps, a startled little noise that she cannot stifle.

Before him, she must have known--must she have?--that there was more than one way to do this, but there is so much she could never have imagined. She has never thought herself naive, certainly, but how could she have known about the contrast of the wall against her back with the softness of his hands on her skin, the way his fingers slide from her ass from behind to slide between her legs--oh _God_ \--or the way her hips buck against him at the sensation?

He adds a second finger, knuckles raw against the wet flesh inside her, and that’s new, too, at this angle. She hardly knows what to do with his fingers inside her and his cock heavy against her, pressing hard through the layers of her skirt. She rocks against him, seeking more friction than she can possibly find through all their clothes. 

What did she think sex was, before? She tries to remember: her cousin saying something about thinking of England, boys and girls who were clearly not thinking at all. Then again, she isn’t thinking either, not really, except of him, of this communion of joy, this frantic build toward joining, this leaving of her senses as she is driven toward more, more, just for the feeling of him against her, for the sight of the half-smile on his face. It grounds her, that dazed look that she has grown to adore. She doesn’t like the idea of world where she doesn’t get to see that smile whenever they decide.

He leans forward and kisses her then, twisting his fingers inside her so she gasps. With his free hand, he brackets her face, fingers sliding under the band that secures her cap to her head. The kiss is almost gentle, and she wonders how he can possibly slow down right now. 

She thrusts her hips against his hand and breaks his kiss, breathing hard. “I thought we were in a hurry,” she says, because they are--whatever unfinished thoughts she has about their future, wherever this takes them today, any day, she refuses to get caught by his patients and would hate to explain any tardiness at Nonnatus. And more, because his fingers cannot quell the heat between her legs, this desperate need to feel him hard inside her. 

No, she wants to go faster. Faster, just faster. 

He pulls his hand away and drops her leg down before stepping even closer, so they are touching from shoulder to knee. His hands rest beside her head and she can feel his heart pounding against his ribs, almost as fast as hers. “Is that what you want?” he asks, low. “Hard and quick?”

She thrusts her hips hard against him, demanding. “Yes,” she says, and her body delights at the thought, her legs shaking beneath her. Yes, she wants him hard and quick and _now_. 

He kisses her and she bites his lip, because still he is kissing her like they have all the time in the world, like she is not about to spin apart from need. His eyes sparkle with amusement and lust as he steps back and fumbles in his pocket for the sheath. 

She rests her head on the wall and watches him, bereft for the moment of his touch. She rolls her breast in her hand, holding tightly. He seems for a minute not to know what to do, and she thrills to think she has surprised him with this simple motion. “You--,” he says, trailing off and reaching his hand to cover hers on her breast, squeezing his fingers over hers. 

The movement brings him a step closer, back toward her, and she reaches her free hand to him, grasping his erection through his trousers. She strokes him once and his hips jerk, and she steps closer still. It is just a moment, this touching and fondling, a pause before the anticipated act that slows their breathing and heightens their need all at once. 

He leans down and kisses her again, the barest touch of his lips on hers, even as he continues to press his cock into her hand and her breast into his palm. She opens her mouth, touching her tongue to his, before pulling away to watch him. 

He reaches a shaking hand again into his pocket, this time coming away with the rubber. He unbuttons and unzips his trousers, pulling his cock from his pants. The tip of his penis is beginning to weep, and as she watches she remembers the salt of his release on her lips and darts her tongue between her teeth.

His eyes never leave her but he makes quick enough work of the rubber, shaking it from its packet and rolling it onto his cock. His erection twitches beneath the latex, and as soon as he is ready she holds her hand out, drawing him closer. 

He crosses the space between them quickly, putting his hands to her ass and lifting her against the wall. He hoists her as if she weighs nothing, and perhaps in this moment she is as weightless as she feels. 

The wall at her back is steady and so is he, and she is well-anchored between them. For a moment, they are face-to-face, and she sees her own wild desire reflected back in his beautiful cloudy eyes. He holds her gaze as he shifts his hips between hers, shoving her skirt out of the way and pressing his cock against her. 

His hands are occupied so she reaches between her legs to pull her knickers aside, stroking his erection with her fingers as she does so. He groans as he thrusts into her in a hard, fast stroke. 

Oh, there it is, what she’s been wanting, what they’ve both been wanting. He grinds against her, within her, pelvis pressing against her clitoris, cock deep inside her. This angle is different still and she wants to learn all the ways he could touch her in all the moments he might. Here, now, she likes the sensation of her legs around him, holding him close as he pushes into her. She meets his thrusts as hard as she can, the stretch of her thighs joining the heat between her legs. 

“Yes,” she says, “yes, please, yes.” He thrusts again and again, harder and faster, caught with her in this whirlwind of joy and sensation. Her head knocks against the wall, her hands curl hard into his shoulders, her feet flex in her shoes, and the pressure builds and builds. There is nothing but him inside her and around her, his breath heavy against her neck, his fingers digging into her ass.

More, she says, or moans, or doesn’t say because her voice has given way to a whimper. She wants more, more, so much more friction as he fucks her.

And then she is coming, hard and without warning, her body shaking and contracting around him. She feels her muscles squeeze his cock, lets her fingers dig deeply into his shoulders, hears her voice as she exhales a moan as the orgasm overtakes her. “Oh God,” he says as her body shudders, and she wonders what it feels like for him as she tenses and releases and loses herself completely. 

It must be good, because he comes with one final, hard thrust, surprising her. “Oh!” she says, rocking against him without a thought, drawing out his pleasure with hers. 

She is still shaking as he shifts forward and rests his head in the crook of her shoulder, forehead against her scapular. She strokes her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, feeling the sweat beading there, and he shifts one of his hands from her thigh to her back, holding her against him as their heart rates slow.

He kisses her neck and then her cheek, a gentle contrast to the position they are still in, joined intimately against the wall. It isn’t comfortable, now, but he seems reluctant to let go, to go back to their real lives, and so she turns her head and kisses him again before pushing lightly at his shoulders. He smiles and lets her down, lowering her legs to the ground. She shakes her heavy skirts out and watches as he makes himself presentable again.

He reaches out and strokes her cheek, the backs of his fingers gentle against her skin. “If we are going to keep doing this,” he says, “you should probably call me Patrick.”

It is a gift and a question, an additional intimacy wrapped in a request for reassurance. If he worries she could walk away from this, she knows he needn’t. 

She doesn’t respond in kind. In this moment, she is neither Sister Bernadette, who committed to the lifelong observance of holy vows now in tatters at their feet, nor Shelagh Mannion, who forsook the joys of the world for faith and healing without a second thought. Neither of those names suit who she is now: sated and messy and alive with fading sensation and deepening possibility. 

Instead she says, “Patrick,” and kisses him once more, this time letting herself linger against his mouth. She runs her hands over his shoulders, brushing out the creases she left in his suit jacket before straightening his tie. “You have patients to see,” she says.

**

The nuns and the nurses chatter, overwhelmed by the success of the TB van. They trade stories of the many complaints about the length of the lines that mean lives saved, the children coaxing their parents into the machine, the doctor’s rare grin as he took it all in. She sits outside the conversation, content to let them think her tired from the excitement of the day. 

She is, she knows, but not only; the feeling from their day at the health board has returned tenfold and she quivers with the need to see him, to talk to him, to hold his hand between hers as they delight in their shared successes. 

Of course she cannot, not now, not ever, unless she finds a way to tell him what she is now sure of: that this life she chose so many years ago is not the one God wants her to live. It is not the life she wants to live. 

There is a knock at the door and he is there, as if conjured by her thoughts, but she can think of no real reason for him to be here, requesting her presence. Already she knows the news cannot be good and the look on his face confirms it before his words do. 

Lesions. Tuberculosis. 

An examination, under Sister Julienne’s careful gaze, because here she is still Sister Bernadette, and anything else would be untoward, or worse, revealing of secrets she will never share. Those fingers she adores cannot touch her here, and his restraint is almost too careful, too revealing.

She cannot breathe, and she doesn’t know if it is the closeness of his hands or the disease she carries or the thought that comes upon them all, immediate and intrusive, that she may die. 

He catches her eye as he folds up his stethoscope and promises to return tomorrow. She wants to grab his hand, ease the horror she sees in his eyes, whisper that this will end differently--surely, she will not die a slow and painful death like his wife, surely she will come back to him one day and give into the hope they both share.

But they would be impossible promises, even if she could voice them, and so he turns and leaves without another word. 

She feels Sister Julienne’s gaze on her as she does the only thing she can: she bows her head and prays. She wants to live. Please, she thinks, just let me live. The rest will follow.

But if she lives--please, please--there can be no returning to this life. Not now, perhaps not since she led Patrick to her bedroom those many weeks ago. Finally, she cannot help from being honest with herself and with God: please, she prays, just let me live. Let me live, and let me be with him. Let this not break us both.

She stays there for a very long time.

***


End file.
